Water is King
Water is the most crucial tool in establishing a regenerative, rotational grazing operation on a large scale.
Simulating Miles of Wear for Continual Development
In permaculture it is taught that borders have the most biodiversity, i.e. the edge of a pond, meadow, or any biome. The success of each environment depends on the other. This concept can easily be applied to horse’s feet. When you consider the delicate balance of proper weight distribution on the solar structures and their rapid rate of growth, it’s easy to realize how hard we would have to work to maintain perfect balance. The reason horses “can’t go barefoot” has nothing to do with them and everything to do with what we are capable of doing for them. I feel that when we decide to put horses in our backyards, we also should assume the duties of Mother Nature. By encouraging movement, and simulating miles of wear through trimming, we can make continual hoof development possible.
A Timeless Pursuit
A lone hunter weaves his way through the sagebrush islands pockmarking the sand of the San Luis Valley. He left at daybreak, just as he has on countless autumn mornings before this. His breath, suspended and frozen in the air, reflects the color of the fiery sunrise barely eclipsing the peaks of the Sangre De Cristos before him and wraps him in an ethereal halo against a background of blue shadows.
Our 16 All-time Favorite Bison Works Photos
Bison Works, which takes place annually at the Medano-Zapata Ranch, is a photographer’s dream. Running bison kicking up clouds of dust, early fall light, and the chance to get up close and personal with one of our continent’s most iconic animals species. We’ve rounded up our all-time favorite photos from many years of photographers capturing this special time of year.
From Locals, For Locals
For six years, Nick Chambers, aka Chef Funghi, has managed Valley Roots Food Hub, a distributor of locally grown produce located in Mosca, Colorado. Besides supplying truly local produce to consumers across Southern Colorado, Nick’s operation supplies the majority of produce featured on Chef Chase Kelly’s menu at Ranchlands’ Zapata Ranch.
Pam Houston on Writing and the Natural World
Next fall Zapata Ranch will be hosting a writing workshop with award-winning American author Pam Houston.
Birding at the Chico with David Tønnessen
David Tønnessen has already made quite a name for himself in the Colorado birding community. He recorded the first sighting of a tropical king bird in the state of Colorado with his two younger brothers at the Chico Basin Ranch. Less than three months later, he recorded another first sighting.
Wildness Incarnate
“The Crane is wildness incarnate. High horns, low horns, silence, and finally a pandemonium of trumpets, rattles, croaks… a new day has begun on the crane marsh. A sense of time lies thick and heavy on such a place. Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.”
A Timeless Trade
Ranching is a trade that is deeply rooted in history and tradition as well as being on the forefront of progress and innovation. It is a trade that can be photographed 50 years apart with little to no noticeable change. A “timeless trade” not just stylistically or aesthetically, but in that its practices, rooted in caring for the land and providing for the people, are as relevant now as they were 100 years ago.
From Open Range to Zapatas Table
Feeding hungry guests after a long day of ranch work is no small task, but Chase Kelley is no stranger […]